A Hazard of New Fortunes | Page 4

is to have our bright home in the setting sun; heigh?"
"I think we Western men who've come East are apt to take ourselves a
little too objectively and to feel ourselves rather more representative
than we need," March remarked.
Fulkerson was delighted. "You've hit it! We do! We are!"
"And as for holding my own, I'm not very proud of what I've done in
that way; it's been very little to hold. But I know what you mean,
Fulkerson, and I've felt the same thing myself; it warmed me toward
you when we first met. I can't help suffusing a little to any man when I
hear that he was born on the other side of the Alleghanies. It's perfectly
stupid. I despise the same thing when I see it in Boston people."
Fulkerson pulled first one of his blond whiskers and then the other, and
twisted the end of each into a point, which he left to untwine itself. He
fixed March with his little eyes, which had a curious innocence in their
cunning, and tapped the desk immediately in front of him. "What I like
about you is that you're broad in your sympathies. The first time I saw
you, that night on the Quebec boat, I said to myself: 'There's a man I
want to know. There's a human being.' I was a little afraid of Mrs.
March and the children, but I felt at home with you--thoroughly
domesticated--before I passed a word with you; and when you spoke
first, and opened up with a joke over that fellow's tableful of light
literature and Indian moccasins and birch-bark toy canoes and
stereoscopic views, I knew that we were brothers-spiritual twins. I
recognized the Western style of fun, and I thought, when you said you
were from Boston, that it was some of the same. But I see now that its
being a cold fact, as far as the last fifteen or twenty years count, is just
so much gain. You know both sections, and you can make this thing go,

from ocean to ocean."
"We might ring that into the prospectus, too," March suggested, with a
smile. "You might call the thing 'From Sea to Sea.' By-the-way, what
are you going to call it?"
"I haven't decided yet; that's one of the things I wanted to talk with you
about. I had thought of 'The Syndicate'; but it sounds kind of dry, and
doesn't seem to cover the ground exactly. I should like something that
would express the co-operative character of the thing, but I don't know
as I can get it."
"Might call it 'The Mutual'."
"They'd think it was an insurance paper. No, that won't do. But Mutual
comes pretty near the idea. If we could get something like that, it would
pique curiosity; and then if we could get paragraphs afloat explaining
that the contributors were to be paid according to the sales, it would be
a first-rate ad."
He bent a wide, anxious, inquiring smile upon March, who suggested,
lazily: "You might call it 'The Round-Robin'. That would express the
central idea of irresponsibility. As I understand, everybody is to share
the profits and be exempt from the losses. Or, if I'm wrong, and the
reverse is true, you might call it 'The Army of Martyrs'. Come, that
sounds attractive, Fulkerson! Or what do you think of 'The Fifth Wheel'?
That would forestall the criticism that there are too many literary
periodicals already. Or, if you want to put forward the idea of complete
independence, you could call it 'The Free Lance'; or--"
"Or 'The Hog on Ice'--either stand up or fall down, you know,"
Fulkerson broke in coarsely. "But we'll leave the name of the magazine
till we get the editor. I see the poison's beginning to work in you,
March; and if I had time I'd leave the result to time. But I haven't. I've
got to know inside of the next week. To come down to business with
you, March, I sha'n't start this thing unless I can get you to take hold of
it."
He seemed to expect some acknowledgment, and March said, "Well,
that's very nice of you, Fulkerson."
"No, sir; no, sir! I've always liked you and wanted you ever since we
met that first night. I had this thing inchoately in my mind then, when I
was telling you about the newspaper syndicate business--beautiful
vision of a lot of literary fellows breaking loose from the bondage of

publishers and playing it alone--"
"You might call it 'The Lone Hand'; that would be attractive," March
interrupted. "The whole West would know what you meant."
Fulkerson was talking seriously, and March was listening seriously; but
they both broke off and laughed. Fulkerson got down off the table and
made